layla 'double betrayla' fairbourne (boundless) wrote in disorderic, @ 2018-01-28 11:21:00 |
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Entry tags: | layla fairbourne, mary francine goldstein |
WHO: Layla Fairbourne and Francine Goldstein.
WHAT: Trouble brewing.
WHEN: Sunday, 28 January. Morning.
WHERE: Layla’s flat, Wimbourne.
WARNINGS: Talk of injuries! :|
Layla hurt. Pain potions helped, and her sofa was nice and comfy, but it still didn’t take away everything she was feeling from crashing full tilt into the stands on Saturday. She had an arm in a splint, the bones fastening back together with the aid of magic, bandages wrapped around her stomach to soothe the slash in her skin and help mend her ribs. Another on the side of her head, and potions to help with the concussions. Numerous more minor injuries, too. She’d been stupid. Really stupid. She’d allowed herself to get caught up in the whole chase and forget that she could have simply let Alicia go. They were proving a point, after all. Instead, Layla had found herself trying to one up her friend in the deadliest game of Quidditch. Dumbass. But after the dust settled and she’d regained consciousness learning about Richenza (who she fought with recently, but she still genuinely liked), and the injuries of some of her innocent friends like Patty (who didn’t deserve any injuries at all), she’d had to go home. She couldn’t handle being around Death Eaters right now, she wanted solitude to mourn and deal with the awful taste of guilt that permeated her body as deeply as the physical wounds she’d taken. Since the news yesterday, Francine had been operating in a daze. She had thought of nothing but the fact that Richenza was gone — gone, as in dead, as in not here, as in forever — and it had left her unable to sleep. When she wasn’t thinking about that, she was thinking about Rolf — who had fought Death Eaters because he was in the Order and was everyone going to die on her? Every time she'd almost fallen asleep, she would remember and then it would startle her awake. She'd stared at her ceiling for hours until finally, exhausted, she was able to sleep for a few hours. When she woke up this morning, she'd made up her mind about what to do. She wanted to talk to Layla. She hadn't talked to her about it yet. She hadn't been anywhere yesterday. Once she finished her toast, she Apparated to Layla's, calling out her name. "Are you here?" she added, taking a few more steps before stopping completely, her eyes widening and mouth dropping slightly. "Layla?" Francine blinked rapidly, taking in the sight of her best friend looking very much like an injured best friend. Why was everyone getting injured? Well shit. Layla’s brain was lagging through the potions and the residual soreness of her injuries. After everything that happened during the Quidditch match the fact that she was supposed to meet Francine had completely slipped her mind. And Francine had never really been one to show up unannounced, even if it was only a few moments before arriving. So she opened her mouth to speak, found throat suddenly dry to go along with the rising tidal wave of panic, and then closed it. Layla needed an excuse. Needed something to justify her heavy injuries the day after a Death Eater action. “Hey, uh,” She shifted, grimacing as she sat upright. “Sorry.” Francine didn't know where to look so her eyes kept flickering back and forth between the visible signs of injuries. They lingered on the bandages around Layla's head as she frowned. Seemingly stuck to the spot, she found that her brain was refusing to work. "Sorry?" “Yeah, for not, you know, saying anything — I figured you had enough on your plate and I didn’t want to worry you,” Layla answered, slowly. She’d have to settle on a work accident or something, there wasn’t anything else that would be plausible. “Do you think I care about that?” Francine’s voice rose in a pitched, near-squeak by the end of her incredulous question. "I can balance a lot of plates at once!" She began to gesticulate wildly, signaling towards Layla’s bandages and splint. “Have you SEEN yourself?” Layla winced, and it wasn’t because of her physical injuries. “I mean, no, but—” she said, almost shying away visibly from the flailing Francine. “I know you can do that, but you shouldn’t have to balance so much. It’s fine. It’s not a big deal. Nothing lasting, I’ll be up in a day or so, probably.” Probably longer until she was fully healed, but whatever. The question that she’d wanted to ask immediately finally appeared. “What happened? Who did this?” There was a rising frantic air about her words. “Not a big deal? Look at you!” “It’s not a big deal. I’ve been hurt worse!” A total lie. “I got called into work, there was some disaster going down because of Morris, that new idiot, charming some volatile stuff. Turns out a work area was a bit unstable.” She looked at Francine pleadingly. “Please, it’s not worth worrying over.” "Well, I am worried!" Francine nearly shouted, suddenly finding her ability to move and quickly making her way over to the sofa. "Look at you!" It felt like that was the only thing she was able to say, the magnitude of what she was observing turning her words into sounds of distress. "Don't move. I'll get someone to look at you! I know some spells, you know I like searching for new ones, and I can't believe Morris would — how did this happen?" What if Layla died too? “Morris is an idiot,” said Layla, frantically trying to shift in a way that kept Francine from getting too close a look at the wound on her side. The most unexplainable one, the slashing spell she’d taken that wouldn’t look like some random accident. Beads of sweat appeared on her forehead from the pain. “I’ve already been looked at, it’s fine.” Her tone was heavier now, more defensive as she panicked. “I know you do and that’s great, but I’m really just fine I need a day or two to relax, and what happened is, well, this is what happens when people try to charm volatile things well beyond their level!” "They should've made sure it was safe first," she bristled, shaking her head. "Or not let him cast anything at all! What kind of place is it that they won't even stop inexperienced people from doing work they shouldn't be doing?" Francine came closer, peering at the splint and then hovering her hands over it. "Where else does it hurt?" “Well, it’s Morris,” Layla stressed as if that answered everything there was about this phantom situation she’d constructed in the last few seconds. “He did it without permission, CLEARLY—” she jerked away again. “My head, my arm, my feet—” she scoffed “— it’s totally fine, I don’t need you to do anything.” She brushed her words off with the kind of dismissal Francine often employed when she wanted her way and it ran against someone else's wishes. "I'm sure," she said dryly, "but I'm still going to. Are you sure you should be here and not St. Mungo's? You can't heal properly like this!" “I’m sure, and you’re not going to,” Layla snapped, pain in her skull growing now from a combination of all the factors weighing down on her. “I have everything, I don’t need your help.” Francine leveled Layla with a stern look. "Everyone needs my help, not least of all you right now! Look at you!" “I know how a mirror works, Francine,” Layla snorted derisively. “And I don’t! All you’re doing is giving me a goddamn headache.” "Right," Francine said, a little stung by the comment, but unwilling to let it show. "I'm giving you the headache. It's not your, I don't know, weird injuries?" “Yes,” snapped Layla, reaching her non-splinted arm to rub one of her bandaged temples. “They’re not weird, they’re just painful.” "It doesn't have to be mutually exclusive! They're weird and painful, which is why," Francine crossed her arms at her, "I'm going to fix it." “How are they weird?” The question died on Layla’s lips as she realized far too late that was a question she didn’t want Francine pondering an answer to. So she continued on, voice raising: “You are not. You’d make things worse.” Layla was saved from an answer with the second half of her words. Although Francine was no stranger to being told that, she'd never heard it from her best friend and it had the effect of making her pull back and stare at her in offense. "What?" She demanded, keeping her voice even. "You're making things worse by not getting any help!" She gestured again at her splint, her hand coming dangerously close to it. "Stop being stubborn!" “I had help! We have on-site healers, it’s been looked at.” It was true, in a way. “And you nearly just hit me, so knock it the fuck off!” "They're clearly incompetent at their job!" “And you’d do better?” Layla just wanted to vomit. "If not me, a real Healer would," Francine insisted. "Look." She lowered her voice, smoothed it out so it was less demanding. "I'll just go and get a Healer really quick. I'm very persuasive, you know. And then you don't even have to leave!" “I don’t want anyone here. I just want to be alone, can’t you understand that?” Layla snapped, harsher than she really wanted. “You’re being a pain in the ass.” Francine gasped and scoffed, almost at the same time. All she was trying to do was help! Why was everyone insistent on shutting her out when she offered? The more she knew she was in the right, the angrier she got, and soon enough, within a matter of seconds, she was livid. Standing up slowly, she glared at Layla. "Oh, I'm so sorry for wanting to help you, I don't know, NOT DIE?" Like Richenza, she almost added. Her phone started ringing in her pocket but she ignored it because she was on a roll. It kept ringing, until it reached her voicemail, the sound lacing into the air and undercutting the force of her speech. Annoyed at it for disrupting the flow of her indignation, she pulled it out and cast a short glance at it, only barely picking up the fact that Alicia had just called her. She’d just listen later. “Because I don’t know if you’re aware, but that JUST happened to someone I care about and almost to someone else and oh, wouldn’t it be wonderful if I had to go to three funerals in a week?” She was trembling now, her lip quivering and breathing shaky. "You're so lucky you're injured right now because I'm so mad at —" Her phone screen lit up, two texts coming across it immediately after the other, and finally, piqued by her curiosity about who was texting it, she paused and read them. Her eyes widened, her eyebrows rose, and she took a small step back, nearly involuntarily. Francine's head lifted from the phone screen to Layla and found nothing left to say. Francine found herself — found herself, passive, as if she wasn't in control of her own movements — backing up. "I have to go," she finally said, faint, her head turned down. "I have to —" “Francine," Layla pleaded, the change apparent. "Wait—” The door closed behind her a moment later. |